It had been years since I’d seen my friend Milton. We had been classmates throughout middle school, high school, and college in the San Francisco Bay Area, but had lost touch as we each settled into adult preoccupations with jobs, mortgages, and family responsibilities. When we finally caught up with each other again, I was curious about what Milton had been doing for a living. 

As it turned out, he had started up a printing business in the late ‘70s. His business was doing well, he told me, but one of his biggest customers was a start-up company that had very little cash and was paying him instead with stock options.

“They’re making computers,” he told me. “It’s kind of a Radio Shack hobbyist thing, but I think they have the potential to sell to a larger market, so I figure they’re worth the gamble.” I complimented my friend on his gutsy faith, and the conversation turned to the subject of surviving toddlers. 

A few years later, I discovered the identity of the start-up that had been paying my friend in equity rather than currency. It was Apple Computer. Milton cashed in on his stock options, sold his print shop, and went on to comfortably fund the next chapter in his life. 

Which leads me to the subject of time travel.

Who among us hasn’t fantasized about what we might do with a time machine and just a few grand in cash? If I could somehow borrow H.G. Wells’ time machine, I’d most likely take out ten grand from savings and set the dial for December 12, 1980 — the day Apple Computer launched its IPO (initial public offering) at $22 per share. 

In 2019, The Motley Fool website ran a story about what the value of a single share of Apple Computer stock would have been worth had you shelled out twenty-two bucks in 1980. Thanks to some stock splits over the succeeding years, that single share would have increased to 56 shares — and at the stock’s trading price at the time the article was published, its value would have been $14,896. Not a bad return on your investment, as my friend Milton could have testified. But now imagine that you had plunked down $10,000 on the IPO. Based on that same timeframe (Dec. 12, 1980 – Nov. 24, 2019), you would have been sitting on a nest egg of…wait for it…$6.7 million. H.G. Wells, are you listening?

While $6.7 million certainly isn’t chump change, I can tell you how you might have made some real money out of Mr. Wells’ contraption. Just set the dial to a mere twenty years before Apple’s IPO — and set course for the San Juan Islands with your $10,000 in hand. If you’re looking for proof of that claim, I’d like to introduce “Exhibit A”: the September-October 1961 edition of Washington Wonderland, with its cover story feature on the San Juan Islands.

My friend Paul Thompson loaned me a copy of this publication that he has kept for the past 60 years. It has sentimental value thanks to a story that his father, Allen Thompson, had written about The Pig War — a story that Tales of the Magic Skagit will be bringing to you as a future podcast episode. But what really got my attention was the real estate ads, which accounted for a significant part of the publication. 

The photos speak for themselves, but I especially direct your gaze to the promo for Center Island, twenty-four miles and a world away from my front door in Mount Vernon, and a place where you could “relax and enjoy yourself under the sun on your own island estate.” Having spent some years in the “agency biz,” primarily on the “earned media” (i.e., PR) side of the house, I’ve written a fair amount of ad copy (please don’t think badly of me), so I couldn’t help but chuckle over the hype from Center Island Development Company Inc. as it pitched “recreation & vacation property for sale.” It’s pretty clear that the key attribute being promoted was “more sun, less rainfall than any other area in Washington.” This reference obviously ignored any part of the state east of the Cascades, but never mind.

“Imagine yourself on your own private ‘island estate’ right in the center of the famous Northwest BANANA BELT. The only area in the Puget Sound that can boast only 13 inches of annual rainfall. No matter what weather conditions prevail else-where (sic), you can almost always depend on clear skies and sunshine at CENTER ISLAND.”

The price of paradise? Lots ranging from $1,250 with downpayment as low as $25 — three dollars more than Apple Computer’s IPO offering. And just to sweeten the deal, the good folks at Center Island Development Company, Inc. would throw in a Sunday yacht trip (“complete expense paid trip aboard a luxury cruiser”) to the “calm sheltered waters between Lopez and Decatur Islands.”

If Center Island seemed a bit too remote, you might have considered one of the “large deluxe wooded view lots” in Ocean Grove Estates, “8 miles southwest of Port Townsend, just north of the Chevy Chase Golf Course.” After all, who could possibly resist ”year-around sunshine in this scenic wonderland within easy reach of rugged mountains, snow-fed streams, towering evergreens, mountain lakes and limitless, everchanging (sic) bays and harbors of the Pacific Ocean’s inland sea.” And all this for the total price, including all costs, of $1,895 — which I should point out is less than the cost of the iMac that I’m writing this story with. If slightly less than two grand was too big a hurdle, you could put a mere 10% down with monthly payments of between $10 to $37.50 a month.

Of course, island life isn’t everyone’s cup of merlot. For those seeking “scenery beyond compare” near Mt. Rainier, just minutes from the White Pass ski lift, “estate size tracts” starting at a more reasonable $795 in High Valley Park were available through Northgate Homes, Inc. for $45 down and $9 a month. Located in Packwood, each plat included a deep well water system and electric power, not to mention “unsurpassed fishing and hunting.” Pinch me.

I could go on, but again, the images of the ads from Washington Wonderland speak for themselves without further snarky commentary from yours truly — who was 10 years old at the time of their publication. I will say, however, that if you thought a $10,000 purchase of stock in Apple Computer in 1980 was a golden ticket to ride, peruse the current real estate ads in any of the San Juan Islands and imagine what ten grand might have gotten you on Center Island in 1961, and what that investment would be worth today. I could do the math, but why make you miserable, right?

In conclusion, let me just say this. H.G. Wells, if you’re listening, I’ve got a proposition for you. For the one day loan of your time machine, I can cut you in on the deal of a lifetime — not to mention “plenty of room to stretch your muscles and ideas” — to quote the Ocean Grove Estates ad. I would encourage you to act quickly. Like the ad says, “Take advantage of this opportunity to buy at prices so low that we believe they should be substantially higher and will rapidly increase in value.” 

Truer ad copy was never written…and if you pass on this, H.G., my next call will be to Marty McFly.